God’s Aquarium

Posted on July 2, 2021 by russellmckinney

Job 42:2 begins Job’s apology to God after he has challenged God’s wisdom and justice in allowing him to suffer so much tragedy. Call it a confession or call it repentance, but the verse signals the end of Job questioning how God was running the universe. Translators have had some difficulty coming to full agreement on how the last half of the verse’s original Hebrew should be translated, but the differences in translations aren’t enough to obscure the basic teaching of the verse. Here’s how the verse reads in a variety of translations:

  • I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. (K.J.V.)
  • “I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.” (N.K.J.V.)
  • “I know that You can do all things, And that no plan is impossible for You.” (N.A.S.V.)
  • “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (E.S.V., N.R.S.V.)
  • “I know that you can do all things: no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (N.I.V)
  • “I know that You can do all things, And that no thought or purpose of Yours can be restrained.” (Amp.)
  • “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you.” (N.L.T.)
  • “I know that You can do all things. Nothing can put a stop to Your plans.” (N.L.V.)

What all of these translations are describing is a God who is big enough to bring His thoughts, purposes, and plans to pass right over the top of all objectors. Job is saying that God is an irresistible, all-powerful deity who can plow His will straight through any resistance it might encounter. He’s saying, “Lord, if You want to do something, no one can stop You from doing it.”

But hold on a minute. Isn’t the Bible filled with stories involving people who actually did prevent God’s purposes, plans, and will from being done? It all started with Adam and Eve. If God’s plan was for them to continue endlessly in sinless perfection, they certainly thwarted that plan, didn’t they? Then along came Cain. If God’s plan was for him to bring the right kind of sacrifice and love his brother Abel, we know what became of that plan. Furthermore, following Cain’s murder of Abel, he went out and fathered an entire line of descendants who were all rebels in regards to God’s purposes, plans, and will. In the end, all of that rebellion culminated in the entire human race, except for Noah and his family, being killed off by way of the great flood.

The point is, we can’t even get through six full chapters of the Bible without encountering literally millions of people who never conformed to God’s plans for their lives. This shows us that an individual’s freewill does factor into the equation of God’s dealings with that individual. The only other conclusion to be drawn is that God actually willed Adam and Eve to eat that forbidden fruit, willed Cain to murder Abel, and willed the human race to reach a state of depravity worthy of almost complete annihilation. That alternative conclusion, of course, cuts completely against the hundreds and hundreds of Bible passages that teach that God is a God of holiness, love, compassion, mercy, and grace.

So, how exactly should we interpret Job 42:2? Well, obviously, if God is dead set on doing something and nothing can change His mind about it, He can do that something anytime and in any way He wants to do it. I mean, He’s not GOD for nothing!!! What’s fascinating about Him, though, is the fact that He desires voluntary submission so much that He not only builds a spiritual/moral freewill into each individual but actually allows each individual to exercise that freewill arbitrarily. Even if that individual uses the freewill to thwart (restrain, stop, prevent, undermine) His will, God won’t recreate or rewire that individual in order to produce obedience. As the classic line goes, “God doesn’t want robots who have to obey Him.”

The illustration of a home aquarium has always been helpful to me when it comes to understanding this balanced relationship between God’s sovereignty and man’s freewill. Imagine an aquarium that sits on a stand in the living room of a home. This aquarium is filled with water and within all that water the fish swim around in a world created especially for them. This world includes: gravel, rocks, plastic plants, a miniature sunken ship, a small treasure chest resting beside the ship, and a beautifully painted background. The aquarium also features an air pump, a filtering system, a light, and a heater.

Sometimes the fish in the aquarium get along with each other, but other times they fight and chase each other around. Sometimes the bigger fish even eat the smaller fish. Through it all, though, the owner of the aquarium is never threatened in any way. Regardless of what goes on among the fish inside the aquarium, he remains sovereignly aloof and in charge. He can do whatever he wants to do concerning the aquarium because the whole operation belongs to him and he’s the one who keeps it in operation.

Do you see how this illustration can be applied to God’s relationship to individuals? Even when people refuse to voluntarily submit to God’s plans, purposes, and will, He always remains in charge of the universe in which those individuals live. I don’t want to stretch the illustration too far, but wouldn’t it be something if the entire universe, including this earth and all the life upon it, is just an aquarium sitting in a corner of heaven? That, perhaps, is a good way of interpreting Job’s comment about God’s omnipotence. God, as the eternal, universal aquarium keeper, can do whatever He wants to do concerning life in the aquarium, but He allows individuals to swim the course of their own choosing. For that matter, Jesus did compare evangelism to fishing, didn’t He? Now that I think about it, maybe that comparison was more appropriate than we have ever realized.

Posted in Calvinism, Choices, Creation, Evangelism, God's Love, God's Omnipotence, God's Omnipresence, God's Sovereignty, God's Will, Man's Freewill, Rebellion, Sin, Submission, Witnessing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Serving Behind the Scenes

Posted on June 30, 2021 by russellmckinney

“But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly” (Matthew 6:3-4, N,.K.J.V.)

Recently, I listened to a Father’s Day sermon by a certain preacher whose televised programs I sometimes record. During one part of the sermon, he used the ministry of A.W. Tozer as an illustration. I was especially interested in that illustration because Tozer, who died in 1963, is about as legendary as they come in terms of 20th century preachers.

Tozer pastored several churches during his more than 40 years in the ministry, most notably serving for 30 years as the pastor of Southside Alliance Church in Chicago. He is, however, best known for his work as an author. In particular, his book The Pursuit of God is considered an all-time classic among Christians.

I was surprised, though, to hear the t.v. preacher use Tozer’s life as an illustration of how a good man can be a bad father. To make his point, the preacher explained that Tozer’s wife, Ada, remarried following Tozer’s death and wasn’t shy about saying she was happier with her second husband than she had been with Tozer. Her second husband’s name was Leonard Odam, and she said of him, “Aiden (A.W) loved Jesus Christ but Leonard Odam loves me.”

Since I had never heard anyone throw an ounce of criticism Tozer’s way, I set myself to the task of online researching why Ada would say such a thing. What I learned was that she had good reason to say it. Tozer, for all of his godly qualities and gifting, was a far better preacher and author than he was a husband and father.

The Tozers had seven children together, and A.W. left the raising of them to Ada while he spent countless hours alone in prayer, meditation, sermon preparation, and writing. His travel schedule was also quite extensive. In the early days of his ministry, he would accept preaching engagements at a moment’s notice and hit the road, leaving Ada behind to catch up to him later. To make matters worse A.W. exhibited a lifelong refusal to purchase an automobile, a conviction that oftentimes left Ada and the children to either walk or take buses or trains.

To say the Tozers lived frugally would be an understatement. Ada had to learn to do a lot with a little because she typically didn’t have an excess of money at her disposal. Why was the money in short supply when she was married to one of the most famous preachers in America? It was the result of A.W. caring little for wealth. He associated it with worldliness and therefore frequently returned half his salary to the church, refused pay increases, and donated much of the royalties from his book sales to charitable causes and people in need.

One writer summed up the Tozer marriage this way: “Most likely A.W. Tozer was never purposely ill-intentioned toward his wife and family, but he was so singly focused on spiritual matters that his managing of practical matters bordered on insensitivity.” Another writer was harsher, asking the question: “How did Tozer reconcile his passionate longing for communion with the Triune God with his failure to love passionately his wife and children?” One thing we can say for certain is that all the spiritual benefit millions have derived from A.W. Tozer’s sermons and books came at the expense of Ada Tozer affording him the time, energy, and unencumbered solitude to prepare those sermons and write those books.

In the end, A.W. Tozer’s shortcomings as a husband and father show us that no one, not even a devout Christian and outstanding minister such as Tozer, is perfect. But we don’t have to study the life of Tozer to learn that, do we? We can learn it just as easily by studying the Bible’s numerous characters who were spiritual giants in some areas and spiritual babes in others. Samuel, for example, was a resounding success as a Judge and a prophet, but he was a failure as a father. Likewise, Solomon built the Temple and had more wisdom than any other man, but he foolishly took hundreds of women for himself and allowed them to lead him into idolatry. These are just a couple of scriptural examples from a long list of them.

The old saying says, “God can hit a straight lick with a crooked stick.” How thankful we should be this saying is true because there are, after all, no totally straight sticks. Let’s keep this in mind anytime we hear that Christians whom we have held in high regard aren’t all that we thought they were. Oh, and let’s also not forget that every Christian who faithfully serves “behind the scenes” without recognition or fanfare in this life will be openly and eternally rewarded in the next one. My guess is that Ada Tozer earned a lot of heavenly rewards while she served in the shadow of her famous husband, and she started enjoying those rewards the moment she died on July 8, 1987. The world may not have known much about all the “secret” service she rendered to allow A.W. the opportunity to do everything he did in service to Jesus, but Jesus surely did.

Posted in Children, Family, Fatherhood, Husbands, Marriage, Ministry, Pastors, Preaching, Priorities, Reward, Service, Wives | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments

What God Thinks About the Emasculation of Men

Posted on June 28, 2021 by russellmckinney

This past Saturday morning I woke up, put on my clothes, and started making my way to the kitchen to get breakfast. As I walked through our living room, my twenty-year-old son, Royce, was sprawled out there on the couch. He was holding his New Living Translation Study Bible that Tonya and I bought him for Christmas a few years ago. He said, “Daddy, listen to this passage.” Then he read the following words from Deuteronomy 25:11-12:

If two Israelite men get into a fight and the wife of one tries to rescue her husband by grabbing the testicles of the other man, you must cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

How’s that for a little Bible study to kick off your weekend? I chuckled and said, “Royce, I’ve read the Bible through, but I don’t recall that being in there.” Then it dawned on me that I had used the K.J.V. translation when I had completed one of those charts that guides you through reading the Bible in a year. As it turns out, the K.J.V. is much more discreet in its wording of that passage. The K.J.V. says:

When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.

Discretion aside, we are left to wonder why God would include such a harsh piece of law in the Mosaic law. (For the record, this is that law’s only instance in which mutilation is the decreed punishment.) I mean, was this problem of women grabbing men in this way commonplace in ancient Israel? Were Israelite wives classically trained to defend their husbands by using this crude but admittedly effective method? For that matter, how often did Israelite husbands get into brawls and how often did their wives interject themselves into those brawls? It’s hard to believe that these situations were rampant enough to require that a specific law be devoted to them.

What God seems to have done by way of this law was convey a larger general principle. That principle was: A man’s ability to procreate and carry on his family line is of great importance because God places a premium upon families and children. It’s certainly no coincidence that this command comes directly after Deuteronomy 25:5-10, another equally strange section of law regarding a man’s obligation to produce a son for his deceased brother. Since I originally quoted the other passage from the New Living Translation, I’ll use that same translation to quote Deuteronomy 25:5-10. Those verses say:

If two brothers are living together on the same property and one of them dies without a son, his widow may not be married to anyone from outside the family. Instead, her husband’s brother should marry her and have intercourse with her to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law. The first son she bears to him will be considered the son of the dead brother, so that his name will not be forgotten in Israel. But if the man refuses to marry his brother’s widow, she must go to the town gate and say to the elders assembled there, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel—he refuses to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law by marrying me.” The elders of the town will then summon him and talk with him. If he still refuses and says, “I don’t want to marry her,” the widow must walk over to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. Then she must declare, “This is what happens to a man who refuses to provide his brother with children.“ Ever afterward in Israel his family will be referred to as “the family of the man whose sandal was pulled off”!

Reading such passages ought to make us glad that God no longer requires us to live under the Mosaic law, right? Still, though, we should keep in mind that 2 Timothy 3:16, a New Testament passage, says that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. And since those words “all Scripture” definitely include Deuteronomy 25:5-10 and 11-12, what would God have us learn from these two passages?

First, as I’ve already mentioned, we should learn the value that God places upon procreation, children, families. etc. To God, family lines being propagated are a BIG deal. That was true in ancient Israel and it is still true today.

Second, we should learn that God makes males to be males, complete with male sex organs, and He is very much against anything that might be classified as emasculation or an attempt to rob a male of his maleness. This, of course, aligns perfectly with God’s numerous condemnations of homosexuality in the both the Old Testament and the New Testament. How pathetic it is that we have now reached a cultural level in which homosexuality, transgenderism, and all other attempts to blur the God-designed lines of sexual distinction are celebrated as social “progress.” God help us.

With this in mind, Christian, let me encourage you to continue to stand true for God and His written word. By doing so, you will shine spiritual light into this world of spiritual darkness. Even though we don’t live under the Mosaic law, we can glean valuable principles and lessons from that law, and we can apply them in New Testament ways each day. Just as Royce’s Saturday comment led to this Monday blog post, who knows what positive effect you can have for the Lord simply by studying His word and bringing it into everyday conversations? As was the case with me and Deuteronomy 25:11-12, those conversations might take you out of your comfort zone a bit and lead you to some rarely discussed topics, but you never know when one of those topics will be God’s way of using you to draw someone closer to Him.

Posted in Bible Study, Children, Courage, Current Events, Family, Fatherhood, God's Word, Husbands, Influence, King James Only, Lesbianism, Parenting, Personal, Scripture, The Old Testament Law, Witnessing | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Attempting to Define Faith

Posted on June 26, 2021 by russellmckinney

Faith is one of those things that is hard to pin down to a simple definition. As evidence of this, Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary offers the following definitions:

  • “allegiance to duty or a person” (as in, “lost faith in the company’s president”)
  • “fidelity to one’s promises”; “sincerity of intentions” (as in, “acted in good faith”)
  • “belief and trust in and loyalty to God”
  • “belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion”
  • “firm belief in something for which there is no proof” (as in, “clinging to the faith that her missing son would one day return”)
  • “complete trust”
  • “something that is believed especially with strong conviction (especially a system of religious beliefs)”

Because the word “faith” can be used in a non-religious way, many of these definitions have nothing to do with Christianity. However, even if we try to define faith in terms of the Christian having faith in God, the definition still doesn’t come easily. Someone might say, “But the Bible’s definition of faith is found in Hebrews 11:1: ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things seen'” (N.K.J.V.). Yes, that is the Bible’s definition of faith, but I’ve always found that definition difficult to apply to real-life situations. It’s like it’s filet mignon from an expensive restaurant when I’m looking for a can of Campbell’s vegetable beef soup. In other words, it’s a little too poetically lofty for the day-to-day grind of my lunch-bucket life.

Any casual search of the internet will produce “faith” quotes from famous Christians, and some of the quotes are quite good. Here are a few of my favorites:

  • “Faith is taking the first step when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Martin Luther King. Jr.
  • “Faith sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible.” Corrie Ten Boom
  • “I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse.” Phillip Yancey
  • “The issue of faith is not so much whether we believe in God, but whether we believe the God we believe in.” R.C. Sproul
  • “True faith rests upon the character of God and asks no further proof than the moral perfections of the One who cannot lie. It is enough that God has said it.” A.W. Tozer

One other definition that I really like comes from Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, the renowned pastor of London’s Westminster Chapel for almost 30 years. In a sermon entitled Spiritual Depression, Jones defined faith in an exceedingly practical, down-to-earth way. I’ll offer his definition as the close to this post, and hopefully we can all put the definition into practice as we walk each day with Jesus. Jones said:

Faith is a refusal to panic. Do you like that sort of definition of faith? Does that seem too earthly and not sufficiently spiritual? It is of the very essence of faith. Faith is a refusal to panic, come what may.

Posted in Adversity, Belief, Commitment, Doubt, Faith, God's Sovereignty, Trials, Trusting In God, Worry | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Why the World Is Like It Is

Posted on June 25, 2021 by russellmckinney

Satan (Lucifer, the Devil) wasn’t the only angel who once rebelled against God. Revelation 12:3-4 uses symbolic imagery to tell us that one-third of all the angels aligned themselves with Satan during that rebellion. Those verses depict Satan as a great, fiery red dragon whose tail swept up a third of the stars of heaven. According to the symbolism, those stars were other angels.

The good news is that one-third is a minority. This means that no matter how much damage Satan and his fellow fallen angels do, they will always be outnumbered by God’s unfallen angels. But this raises the question: If God’s angels have Satan’s angels outnumbered, why is the world so messed up spiritually and morally? The answer is: Even though God’s angels outnumber Satan’s angels, Satan’s children outnumber God’s children by a wide margin.

Yes, the Bible really does describe lost unbelievers as being Satan’s children (Matthew 13:38; John 8:44; Acts 13:10; 1 John 3:10). The notion that “we are all God’s children” might be a heartwarming one, but it is flatly contradictory to scripture. Actually, in light of what Jesus said about few people finding the narrow gate that leads to heaven (Matthew 7:13-14), it’s a marvel that the world isn’t even more of a moral wasteland. That must surely be a testament to just how much salt and light us Christians really are (Matthew 5:13-16).

Of course, we could be even more salt and light if a great many of us weren’t backslidden, rebellious, immature, and undiscerning. Sadly, such Christians oftentimes do more of Satan’s bidding than God’s bidding. Imagine two armies, Satan’s army and God’s army, engaged in warfare. Satan’s army is vastly superior in sheer numbers to God’s army, but the situation is made even worse by the fact that a sizable percentage of God’s army helps carry out the battleplans of Satan’s army. Welcome to our modern world.

Getting back to God’s unfallen angels, even they don’t get to do their work unencumbered by Satan’s fallen angels. One of the Bible’s proof passages on this is Daniel chapter 10. There, we read how for 21 days a powerful fallen angel called “the prince of the kingdom of Persia” withstood one of God’s angels and kept that angel from delivering a message to Daniel. Only when Michael, God’s archangel, joined the angelic fight was God’s angel able to get the message through to Daniel.

So now let’s put all this information into the blender. First, one-third of all the angels now align themselves with Satan and do his bidding. Second, that minority group of angels aren’t about to let God’s majority group of angels do God’s work without resistance. Third, the number of lost people (children of Satan) worldwide is disproportionately high to the number of saved people (children of God). Fourth, even a sizable percentage of the saved children of God aren’t submitted enough, obedient enough, mature enough, and discerning enough to really do God’s work rather than Satan’s work. You see, by blending these four pieces of information together, we concoct the lethal cocktail that has created the global status quo. And while I realize that none of this is very comforting, it at least provides us with an explanation for why the world is like it is.

Posted in Angels, Backsliding, Current Events, Demons, Depravity, Discernment, Disobedience, God's Work, Government, Problems, Rebellion, Salvation, Satan, Sin, Spiritual Warfare, Submission, Suffering, The Devil | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How to Have the Courage of a Lion

Posted on June 23, 2021 by russellmckinney

I read about a mouse who was terrified of cats until a magician turned it into a cat. That gave the mouse-turned-cat great courage until it was chased by a dog. The magician then turned it into a dog, and the mouse-turned-cat-turned-dog was again filled with courage. But the courage only lasted until the creature was chased by a lion. When it returned to the magician in the expectation of being turned into a lion, the magician said, “Even if I gave you the body of a lion, you would still have the heart of a mouse” and turned it back into a mouse.

The Bible says that Saul stood a head taller than anyone else in Israel (1 Samuel 9:2). By all rights, he should have been the one to accept the Philistine giant Goliath’s offer to engage in a one-on-one showdown with the outcome of the battle between Israel and Philistia at stake. Why, then, didn’t the battle between Israel’s tallest and Philistia’s tallest happen? It didn’t happen because Saul didn’t have the courage for it. As 1 Samuel 17:10-11 says:

And the Philistine said, “I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.” When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. (N.K.J.V.)

By contrast to Saul’s physical size, David was just a youth (1 Samuel 17:33,42) who wasn’t even fully grown yet. What he had, though, that Saul lacked was the heart of a lion. Not only did David volunteer to face Goliath (1 Samuel 17:26-37), he even trash talked the giant (1 Samuel 17:41-47), and ran out to him (1 Samuel 17:48).

We know how that encounter ended, don’t we? But let’s not focus upon that outcome. Let’s focus, instead, upon the courage it took to even go out there and face a man almost ten feet tall. How could a teenage boy have such courage? The answer is: David got it from the Lord. Consider a couple of statements from David (both from the N.K.J.V.):

  • Moreover David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” (1 Samuel 17:37)
  • Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, who you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand…”” (1 Samuel 17:45-46

These words show that God was the source of David’s great inner courage. And have you heard that God wants to provide you with that same type of courage? No matter what giant you are facing, God can give you the heart of a lion to face it.

Of course, David lived in the days of the Old Testament, a time before Jesus (God the Son) left heaven and came down to the earth to die as the substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. That simply means, though, that you and I have even more revelation of God to work with than David had. You see, David’s “Lord of Hosts” is Jesus, a fact He will prove one day when He returns to the earth and decisively wins the Battle of Armageddon (Revelation 19:1-21) that will end the seven-year tribulation period that is prophesied to come upon this world.

So, just as Jesus gave David courage in the Old Testament era, He can give you courage in this New Testament era if you will only place saving belief in Him and let Him be your “shepherd” (another one of David’s depictions of the Lord: Psalm 23:1-6; John 10:1-30). Time and time again in the pages of the New Testament we find Jesus saying to His followers, “Fear not” and “Don’t be afraid.” On the one hand, He wouldn’t have had to keep saying that if people weren’t naturally prone to fear. But on the other hand, He wouldn’t have kept saying it if He didn’t mean to supply His followers with the courage to overcome their fear. Keep this in mind, Christian, as you face your Goliath, and go out to meet that giant not in your own strength but in the strength of your Savior. Be like David, do your fighting in the name of the Lord and let the Lord of Hosts make you victorious.

Posted in Adversity, Courage, Faith, Fear, Problems, Trusting In God, Worry | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Letting Go & Letting God

Posted on June 22, 2021 by russellmckinney

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. (Philippians 4:6, K.J.V.)

“Don’t worry.” That advice is a lot easier given than accepted, isn’t it? The temptation is to respond to the advice-giver by saying, “You’d be worried too if you were dealing with my problem.” I read recently that stress is the basic cause of death for more than half the people who die before age 65. That stat came from no less an authority than The Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Years ago, I came down with a strange ailment that I had never had before and haven’t had since. For a period of a few weeks, large raised welts (hives) popped up all over my back at unpredictable times, especially at night They would appear, itch like nothing should ever be allowed to itch, and then subside after several minutes of me scratching hard enough to almost break the skin.

I first guessed that the welts (hives) were being caused by an allergic reaction, and my attempted remedy was to change the shower soap I was using. But that didn’t help. Then I got to thinking that the problem might have something to do with the laundry detergent I was using. But that wasn’t it either.

Finally, I paid a visit to our local medical center. I’ll admit that I was thoroughly stunned when the doctor told me, “It would be nice if your problem was being caused by an allergic reaction, but I think it’s more likely it is being caused by stress.” I was a teenager at the time, not long out of high school, no wife, no kids, and no mortgage. My days were spent working my job in a convenience store, and my nights and weekends were spent playing some type of ball. What did I have to be stressed about?

To this day, I still don’t know why those welts (hives) came or went. All I know is that after a few weeks they stopped making their periodic appearances on my back. Did I change my lifestyle in an attempt to lower my stress level? Not really. Like I said, I didn’t think I was particularly stressed anyway. Still, though, I’ve never forgotten that doctor’s diagnosis, and I thought of it when I read that recent finding from The Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Those of us who know the Bible well are very familiar with Philippians 4:6, this post’s text passage. Some translations of the verse read “Don’t worry about anything” rather than “Be careful for nothing.” Others use the word “anxious” as in “Don’t be anxious about anything.” I myself favor that translation because I can be anxious about something without drifting into full-blown worry about it. But God doesn’t even want me to be anxious.

These days I’m a long way from that carefree teenager I used to be. Much to the contrary, I’m plenty stressed. No, I don’t have the outer raised welts (hives) to prove it, but I’ve sure got ’em on the inside. You say, “Russell, you just need to take your stresses to God in prayer.” Oh, I do. Really, I do. But the problem is that I don’t always leave them with Him. You see, when 1 Peter 5:7 tells us that we are supposed to cast all our cares (our anxieties, our worries, our stresses) upon God, that means that He doesn’t want to play catch with us as we toss them back and forth. Instead, He wants to catch them and never throw them back to us. You’ve heard that old saying “Let go and let God” haven’t you? Well, that saying really does apply when it comes to casting our cares upon God. It’s just a shame that we don’t always put it into practice.

Posted in Belief, Faith, God's Love, God's Omnipotence, God's Provision, Needs, Personal, Prayer, Prayer Requests, Problems, Trusting In God, Worry | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Which Direction Does Your Life Flow?

Posted on June 18, 2021 by russellmckinney

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, N.K.J.V.)

In his commentary remarks on this passage, John Phillips provides us with a wonderful illustration regarding times of backsliding in the life of the saved person. He writes:

People who profess to be saved but who live as though they weren’t are self-deceived. It is not that a saved person cannot fall, and have a need to be restored to fellowship. It is a question, really, of the flow of a person’s life.

For instance, the river Nile flows north from the great lakes of Central Africa to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Between the fifth cataract and the fourth cataract the great river turns west and then south. Between the fourth cataract and the third cataract it turns again and heads northwest. At Derr, the river changes direction yet again and heads straight for the delta.

If someone at a point just beyond Derr were to be asked, “Which was does this river flow?” he would say “south,” but he would be wrong. The river flows north. Its various twists and turns are not the normal and general direction of the flow but only temporary aberrations.

The same thing is true of the genuine believer. The great question is, in what direction does his life flow? Is it toward holiness? We see David commit adultery, we see Jonah run away from God’s call, we hear Peter deny his Lord with oaths and curses, we see Elijah run away from Jezebel, and we hear Abraham deny Sarah in Egypt and again in Gerar. The stream seems to be bent. But look! There is David on his face weeping and writing his tear-drenched penitential psalms; there is Jonah heading for Nineveh after all; there is Peter preaching boldly to the multitudes; there goes Elijah confronting Ahab again; and there is Abraham heading for Mount Moriah. The real flow of life has simply reasserted itself. Things have straightened out. The life still flows toward holiness. The main direction of life has again become clear.

It is not that saved people cannot fall into the kinds of sins which characterized them in their unregenerate days. However, they do not continue in those sins. They bitterly repent of their fall and seek cleansing and a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit. They continue on their way toward heaven. The unregenerate have no such current toward holiness in their lives. They habitually sin and excuse themselves for it.

Can a truly born-again Christian ever commit any of the sins on Paul’s list from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10? Yes. Whether the sin be adultery, homosexuality, some other type of sexual sin, idolatry, theft, covetousness, drunkenness, reviling (being loudly abusive toward another), or extortion, the genuine Christian is not exempt from committing it. This is particularly true if that Christian showed a penchant for that sin during pre-conversion days.

But what a truly born-again Christian can’t do is commit any such sin without being brought under the indwelling Holy Spirit’s conviction over it. This means that the Christian can’t honestly enjoy the sin in any kind of consistent way. He or she can feel the sensation of the fleshly pleasures of the sin for a brief amount of time (Hebrews 11:25), but those pleasures will always be temporary. Soon afterward will come the conviction, the guilt, the shame, and the remorse. Then will come the confession, the repentance, and the restored fellowship with God. The relationship won’t need to be restored because, once that relationship has been established through the salvation experience, no amount of sin or backsliding can ever sever it.

Just as a pig can wallow in a mud hole for hours on end and love every second of it, a lost person can wallow in a sinful lifestyle for years and enjoy it thoroughly. By contrast, the Christian who is born again, regenerated, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit simply doesn’t have the spiritual stamina to unashamedly maintain such a lifestyle. To use John Philipps’ illustration, the flow of that Christian’s life will eventually correct itself and get headed back in God’s direction. Really, we might say that when God saves a person, He ruins that person’s ability to enjoy sin. He doesn’t tell you that when He saves you, but it certainly doesn’t take you long to figure it out once you are saved.

Posted in Addiction, Backsliding, Confession, Contentment, Desires, Doing Good, Eternal Security, Grace, Guilt, Personal Holiness, Rebellion, Repentance, Restoration, Salvation, Sin, Temptation | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Translation Issues from the Life of David

Posted on June 16, 2021 by russellmckinney

On Wednesday nights for the past several months, I’ve been preaching a series of sermons on the life of David. As part of my studying to prepare those sermons, I’ve had to deal with a couple of textual difficulties. One is found in 2 Samuel 15:7 and the other one is found in 2 Samuel 21:8. Because the translation I preach from at church is the King James Version, both difficulties involve the K.J.V.

I’ll start with 2 Samuel 15:7, a verse found in the context of the story of how David’s son Absalom temporarily stole the kingship from him. 2 Samuel 15:4-7 says in the K.J.V.:

Absalom said moreover, “Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice! And it was so, that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took him, and kissed him. And on this manner did Absalom to all Israel that came to the king for judgment: so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. And it came to pass after forty years, that Absalom said unto the king, I pray thee, let me go and pay my vow, which I have vowed unto the Lord, in Hebron.

The problem here is not that the K.J.V. translation team wrongly translated the original Hebrew of 2 Samuel 15:7. No, the Hebrew text really does say “forty.” The problem is that “forty” seems to imply that Absalom spent forty years buttering up the people in Jerusalem before he began his coup attempt against his father. Why is that a problem? It’s because David reigned for only 40 years in total (2 Samuel 5:3-5; 1 Kings 2:11), and for the first seven-and-a-half years of that reign he wasn’t even king over the entire nation. Instead, he reigned exclusively over Judah, the territory of Israel’s two southernmost tribes.

Furthermore, during David’s seven years in Judah, his royal residence was in Hebron rather than in Jerusalem, the city in which 2 Samuel 15:7 takes place. Also, even though Absalom was born during David’s years in Hebron, he certainly hadn’t been born yet when David first came to the throne there (2 Samuel 3:2-3). What all this means, of course, is that Absalom couldn’t possibly have spent forty years in Jerusalem winning over the people of Israel before he stole the kingship from David.

So, how do we explain the K.J.V.’s “forty years” of 2 Samuel 15:7? Well, two explanations have been offered. One is held by those who think the K.J.V. is a perfect translation (“God’s preserved word for the English language” to use their definition). The other one is held by those who think the K.J.V. is a reliable translation but not a perfect one.

The first explanation, the one the “K.J.V. only” advocates present, is that the forty years in question have to do with David rather than Absalom. As the explanation goes, the words “And it came to pass after forty years” mean that forty years had passed since the prophet Samuel had anointed David as king over all Israel (1 Samuel 16:1-13). As you might know, Samuel anointed David approximately fifteen years before David literally sat upon any throne as a king. Those fifteen or so years were marked by King Saul, who refused to abdicate the throne, constantly seeking to kill David.

The second explanation, the one favored by those who don’t hold to the “K.J.V. only” viewpoint, is that “forty” is simply a Hebrew scribe’s copying error that should read “four.” This would mean that Absalom swayed the hearts of the people for four years before attempting to overthrow his father. In support of this explanation is the fact that “four” is used in the Syriac translation of the Bible. That translation is called the Peshitta and it is one of the oldest translations we have, dating all the way back to the 5th century, Additionally, some versions of the Greek Septuagint translation read “four” instead of “forty,” and even the Jewish historian Josephus favored “four” over “forty” in regards to the text.

I myself have no trouble believing the text should read “four.” It just fits the story so much better than trying to bring David’s anointing from decades earlier into the plot at that point. For that matter, why should we single out David’s anointing as the event that marked the beginning of the purported forty years? There’s certainly nothing in the story to suggest that we should do that. Really, though, it’s pretty much just the “K.J.V. only” people who cling to the idea of “forty” years in the verse. Virtually all of the modern translations — the English Standard Version, the Holman Christian Standard Bible, the New American Standard Bible, the New International Version, the New Living Translation, the New Revised Standard Version, etc. — render the time period as “four” instead of “forty.”

Now let’s move on to the problem found in 2 Samuel 21:8. The K.J.V. of that verse reads:

But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite.

In this instance, the problem is that the name “Michal” seems to be wrongly used in place of “Merab,” the name of Michal’s sister. Merab, not Michal, was the wife of Adriel the Meholathite (1 Samuel 18:19), and Merab was the one who bore him five sons. Michal was childless (2 Samuel 6:23).

Those who take the position that the King James Version is flawless are quick to point out that the verse doesn’t say that Michal actually gave birth to the five sons. To the contrary, it calls the sons those “whom she brought up for Adriel…” This implies that Michal, having no children of her own, more or less adopted the boys and raised them. There is no reason given for why Merab, their biological mother, would have stepped aside and let her sister raise all of her boys, but nevertheless that’s the way the story reads in the K.J.V. It is also worth noting that here again the problem isn’t in the translation. The original Hebrew text from which the K.J.V. translators worked does use the name “Michal” instead of “Merab.”

But hold on a minute. There are two other Hebrew manuscripts of this text, ones not used by the K.J.V. translators, and those two texts do use “Merab” instead of “Michal.” Along the same lines, the second-century version of the Greek Septuagint translation uses “Merab” instead of “Michal.”

And then there is the strongest piece of evidence that the name should be “Merab” instead of “Michal.” That is the fact that the original Hebrew word the K.J.V. translators rendered as “brought up for” in the verse is yalad, That’s the classic Hebrew word for “bare” and it’s translated as such in the K.J.V. dozens and dozens of times in the Old Testament. Obviously, when the K.J.V. translators came to yalad in the original Hebrew of 2 Samuel 21:8, they were faced with a serious dilemma. The same text that read “bare” (yelad) also read “Michal” even though 2 Samuel 6:23 flatly states that Michael had no child unto the day of her death. How could the K.J.V. translators soothe over this glaring contradiction? They did it by forcing the translation phrase “brought up for” onto yalad for this one instance. Needless to say, this is a big reason why virtually all the modern translations break rank with the K.J.V. (as they do with “forty” and “four” in 2 Samuel 15:7) and go with “Merab” instead of “Michal” in 2 Samuel 21:8.

Obviously, you can consider this post an advocacy for the need to consult multiple translations to get at the truth of any piece of scripture. Not only am I not “K.J.V. only,” I’m also not “N.K.J.V. only,” “N.I.V. only, “N.A.S.B. only,” E.S.V. only,” “N.R.S.V. only,” N.L.T. only,” or “H.C.S.B. only.” I do believe the original manuscripts of the Bible’s books were all perfect and completely without error, each one being divinely inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16), but I don’t believe any one translation is perfect. A perfect translation would require a perfect team of translators, and no translation team, even the K.J.V. translators, have ever claimed to be perfect.

Even if we could find a perfect team of translators, we couldn’t possibly know for sure which Old Testament Hebrew texts and New Testament Greek texts are perfect. Since the original manuscripts of each of the Bible’s books has been lost to history, what we have now are merely scribal copies of copies of copies of copies of each book. Many of these copies are not even fully intact but are instead only portions or mere fragments. Regarding any type of copy, we’re not talking about a copying machine copy, either. We’re talking about a handwritten copy painstakingly done by some scribe through untold hours of tedious work.

The good news is that we have literally thousands of these copies to consult. The bad news is that even though all the copies stand in perfect agreement 99% of the time, there are slight differences in them. These differences are all exceedingly minor — a punctuation here, a word or phrase there, a difference in name on occasion — but they are real.

Some people say, “Just go with the oldest copies (i.e., the ones produced in the years closest to the original source manuscripts) because they have to be the most accurate ones.” Actually, however, the oldest copies don’t necessarily have to be the best. If a certain scribe made a certain error early in the historical streamline of a certain copy, that error would be perpetuated in all the copies that were made from that copy. That’s how an older copy from a error-marred chain of copies could actually be less accurate than a newer copy from a more accurate chain of copies.

Are you beginning to see now why it’s good that translation teams have a plethora of copies from which to produce their translations and why it’s good that we have a plethora of translations to study? In this day and age, we don’t even have to go out and spend a ton of money buying all these translations. All we have to do is visit websites such as BibleGateway.com. There we can find dozens of translations for free.

I consult that particular site frequently in my studies, and I encourage you to do the same. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much new light can be shed on familiar passages that you have only read from one translation, and you’ll also be able to get a ton more insight into problematic passages such as 2 Samuel 15:7 and 2 Samuel 21:8. Hopefully, through it all, the word of God will become more vibrant and relevant to you that it has ever been, and that in turn will translate (do you see what I did there?) to you serving the Lord better than you ever have. That, after all, is the goal, right? I mean, all the copies of Hebrew and Greek texts ever found and all the translations ever produced from them won’t do us any good if we don’t put their plain-as-day teachings into practice. That’s how we turn the written word of God into the living word of God, and it’s how we elevate the Bible to its proper place in our lives.

Posted in Bible Study, Discernment, Discipleship, God's Word, King James Only, Preaching, Scripture, The Bible | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

That Something You Won’t Give Up

Posted on June 14, 2021 by russellmckinney

Matthew 19:16-30, Mark 10:17-31, and Luke 18:18-30 all give us the story of Jesus’ conversation with a rich young ruler. The ruler begins the conversation by asking Jesus, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” By studying the story in total, however, we learn that the young man probably wasn’t so much worried about receiving forgiveness of his sins as he was about setting himself up in the afterlife to the level of abundance he enjoyed in earthly life.

How do we know that his intention wasn’t merely to receive forgiveness for his sins? We know it because he claimed to have no sins for which he needed forgiveness. When Jesus said to him, “You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Do not defraud,’ Honor your father and your mother'” (Mark 10:19), the young man confidently stated, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” That was clear proof that him being under acute conviction of his sins wasn’t what had brought him to Jesus.

At worst, the young man was a boldfaced liar who claimed to be sinless. At best, he was delusional about not only his own sin nature but also what constitutes sin. (Perhaps he hadn’t heard Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the sermon in which the Savior had explained that sins are committed inwardly as well as outwardly.) I’ll be charitable and go with the latter interpretation to explain the young man’s statement about his lack of sin. Either way, though, he had no real understanding of just how spiritually lost he was.

It is noteworthy that Jesus included on His partial listing of the commandments, “Do not defraud.” Unlike the others on His list, that one isn’t one of the Old Testament law’s famous ten commandments that are named in Exodus 20:1-17. While it’s possible that “Do not defraud” was simply a loose paraphrase of the law’s tenth commandment (“You shall not covet”), it’s probably more likely that Jesus purposely worded the commandment that way because He wanted to address the outward sinful conduct (defrauding others) that can arise from the inward sinful desire (coveting). If this was the case, it isn’t hard to theorize that the rich young ruler had acquired some of his wealth by means of defrauding others, even if he didn’t admit to it.

Whatever the young fellow had going on in his life, Jesus harpooned him when He told him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.” Following that, we read that the young man was sad and went away in sorrow because he had great possessions. Translation? He wasn’t about to sell all that he had and give it to the poor, even if that actually would have gotten him into heaven.

Obviously, Jesus knew that even such a radical act wouldn’t get him into heaven anyway, and so why did He bother to float out the suggestion? He did it to expose the young man’s true God: wealth. Jesus knew that by asking for such an extreme commitment, that young ruler would have to quit playing games with religion (adhering to a works-based salvation) and be forced to come to terms with his own sinful worldliness. To sum up, Jesus’ suggestion brought that seeker to a “Get Real” or “Get Out” fork in the road, and that seeker chose the “Get Out” fork. Jesus’ 12 apostles, men such as Matthew, James, John, Peter, and Andrew, had been brought to that same fork in the road by Jesus and had chosen to forsake all and follow Him. They stood in stark contrast to that rich young ruler. That fact wasn’t lost on Peter when he said to Jesus later in the story, “See, we have left all and followed You.”

But now let’s turn our attention to us. What things in our lives are preventing us from following Jesus the way He wants us to follow Him? The rich young ruler’s wealth was his impediment, but there are other possible impediments. For example, a job can be an impediment, as can a relationship, a hobby, or an addiction. You see, your impediment is that one thing you won’t give up even if it keeps you from fully accepting Christ’s call to follow Him. Think of it this way: If your arms are so filled with anything or anyone that you can’t use those arms to take up the cross and follow Jesus, you have something in common with the rich young ruler. As we’ve seen, he refused to empty his arms of his impediment and take up Christ’s cross. The question now is: Will you make that same mistake?

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